Tag: gift

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A Clown Called Worthy

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2500 people.

A hot, humid Virginia night.

And me—standing on the Dogwood Dell stage, smelling like I bathed in a designer fragrance called “Eau de OFF!”

Listen… I wasn’t just wearing bug spray.

I was marinated in it.

If any mosquito came for me, they would’ve turned around and filed a complaint.

Five minutes.

That’s all the time they gave me to stand there with all my 55 years, all my stories, all my scars, all my holy sass… and share an original piece only about three people were truly going to “get.”

And honestly? I prayed most folks wouldn’t understand it too well — because it was raw, personal, and inspired by that sad little clown inside me who finally decided she deserved some joy, too.

People laughed.

People cried.

People tilted their heads like confused puppies trying to interpret my metaphors.

And yes… one person came strictly to see me fail.(Satan always sends somebody. It’s in his job description.)

And then it happened…

Not my feet—

but my tongue betrayed me.

See, when I get nervous, my words tango.

Between my stutter, my little childhood speech lisp, and this post cancer chemo brain that sometimes takes a coffee break without warning, a few words just packed their bags and left me mid-sentence.

But here’s the funny part:

Most in the audience thought that pause was intentional.

They thought I was giving them deep drama, spoken-word artistry, pregnant silence, poetic tension—

Nope.

Sis just forgot her line.

But God used it anyway.

Because that “mistake” was actually the unveiling of something old—

the little girl who tried her whole life to fit into rooms she was never built for.

The child who once thought her voice was “less than.”

The woman who learned the hard way that the things we try to hide are the things God loves to spotlight.

And on that stage, with my tongue tripping but my spirit standing tall, something broke—and something healed.

I spoke about differences…

disabilities…

heartbreak…

grief…

love lost and breath stolen…

but also about reclaiming my right to be seen, to be heard, to be honored, to be treated with softness, and to outgrow every lie my past tried to tattoo onto my identity.

The applause was loud, beautiful…

but the loudest thing was inside me—

my heartbeat finally syncing with God’s truth:

I am worthy.

Not because I performed.

Not because I impressed anybody.

But because God never once asked me to be flawless—

He only asked me to be faithful.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

— 2 Corinthians 12:9

My weakness didn’t disqualify me.

It qualified me for grace.

It made the moment real.

It made it mine.

Sometimes God lets you trip over your tongue so you stop tripping over your past.

Sometimes He lets your words fall so your truth can rise.

Sometimes your “mistake” is just Heaven’s way of proving that you don’t need perfection to be powerful…

you just need courage.

And if a five-minute performance in “OFF!” perfume taught me anything, it’s this:

If God says you’re worthy, no stumble, no lisp, no past, no hater, and no missing word can argue Him down.

Love, Chelle

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Bloom Baby Bloom A Christmas Cactus Sermon I Didn’t Ask For

Posted in cancer, christmas, faith, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment


So listen… this morning I’m minding my business, sipping my coffee, scrolling Facebook, and everyone and their Grandma is posting pictures of these big, full, show-off Christmas cactuses blooming like they’re auditioning for The Voice.


And then there’s mine.
Sitting in my living room.
Looking like it’s thinking about blooming, but hasn’t quite made a decision.
One tiny blush of color like, “Don’t rush me, sis. I’m processing.”


I’m looking at this plant like, “Ma’am… it is almost Christmas. I need you to get it together. Shine for the people.”


So I start Googling tips. Because I refuse to be the only one with a cactus that looks like it has low iron. And baby… what I found? A whole WORD. A sermon. A Bible study. A TED Talk.


Apparently, if you want a Christmas cactus to bloom, you have to do something called “darkening to bloom.”


Yes. You literally put that plant in the dark 12–16 hours a day like it’s grounded.
Then! You’re supposed to pluck off the long, lazy leaves (but don’t you dare use scissors).
Keep it a little colder.
Restrict its comfort.
Limit its light.
Disrupt its cozy routine.
And after all that?
…It blooms.
It blooms brighter because of the dark.
Not the light.
Not the pampering.
Not the perfect conditions.
THE DARK.


And I said, “Well God… if You wanted to speak to me directly, you didn’t have to drag my plant into this.”
Because sometimes life puts us into a “darkening to bloom” season.
Not because we’re failing.
Not because we did anything wrong.
Not because God forgot us.
But because the bloom requires it.


Sometimes He limits our distractions.
Sometimes He cuts off excess.
Sometimes He cools the room so we stop running and finally rest.
Sometimes He hides us away long enough to develop something deep, strong, and beautiful.


And just like that cactus, you won’t even notice the change happening…until a day, somebody walks past you and says: “Oh wow… look at you shining.”
And you’ll realize the dark didn’t break you —
It prepared you.
It strengthened you.
It sharpened you.
It positioned you.
It pushed your bloom right to the edge of the breakthrough.
So if you’re in a season that feels cold, quiet, hidden, or clipped…
Baby, don’t panic.
You’re not dying.
You’re developing.
And when the time comes?
Listen…
You’re gonna bloom so hard folks will swear you’re a Christmas cactus on the front page of Facebook.
Amen and amen.

With Love Chelle

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Smiles And Tears Cake

Posted in cancer, cancer, chemotherapy, christmas, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelpTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When a situation births the twins of joy and pain, it makes me feel schizophrenic.


My go-to response is to clean the kitchen and bake something new. Mess up what I just fixed with goodies I will never eat. Provide delight to others while I’m screaming inside. Ministering sweets to others when I need a taste for myself.

My current loss is another’s gain. I feel quite selfish in wanting to hold on to someone who I am happy is finally free.

I know. I know. It is not the end of all things. We will meet again, at some junction, some highway, under some rainbow.


She liked to say I put my “foot in that!”.
Naw gurl! It’s smiles and tears.

Smiles and Tears
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As Long As Someone Remembers

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It was one of the oddest days of my life. Was sitting at my desk frozen when I got the call from my hometown, sherrif. My brain went into autopilot, and I kept trying to work with tears streaming down my face. My then boss had to force me to breathe and go home. The love my co-workers showed was unmatched. Could not have made it through the coming days and the funeral without them.

He was a complicated man that I did not get to know until he was an old man in need of redemption and forgiveness. In the beginning, I was an abandoned child, looking for answers, who only served him out of obedience to my God, and the Word said to honor thy father. In the end, I became the child thru whom he wanted to give answers and ask forgiveness from his other children thru.

We didn’t have time to become father/daughter in the traditional sense. What we did have was card games, sweet potato pies, road trips, old Navy stories, testaments of the grandparents I didn’t get to meet, and a soft spot for healing to begin. He became my Pop, and I became his church mother. LOL and inside joke between us.

I figure sometimes that I was the “Moses” baby. … shipped off with no knowledge of him…so I could return and become a path to his need for freedom. Though I 💯 validate it, I am blessed to never quite have known the anger my sisters and brothers felt for him. I suppose my heart was kept in reserve for the old man and young child of God he would become.

Still missing you, Pop. I thank you for the gift of the crazy brood of sisters and brothers I inherited 9 years ago.

I hope amongst the milk and honey that there is strong coffee and sweet potato pie!!

Edgar Jerome “Jerry” Franklin-Bradshaw
March 1, 1944 – February 5, 2015


Never Really Gone As Long As Someone Remembers.

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Disconnect

Posted in cancer, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelpTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The last few months have been crazy busy with normal things and unusual situations. All resulting in a great rushing around town and telephones ringing incessantly while I wear my many hats as wife, mother, grandma, daughter, sister, employee, minister, caregiver, and advocate for the homeless.

In the midst of stress and exhaustion, there is one time I must pause every morning, typically at 4 a.m. During those wee hours, I don a compression garment that looks very much like a cross between the Micheline Tire Man and Robo Cop. I then connect it to a machine that forces a tight lymphatic massage from my feet up to my arms. Rotating in four zones.

Those one to two hours daily are not much fun. Confining and often sweaty. But nevertheless, a necessary evil to ward off any increasing lymphodema caused by the removal of 100s of lymph nodes during my cancer fight.

To make it less taxing, I typically light a scented candle, make a cup of herbal tea, pull up a sermon on YouTube and attempt to ignore phone calls from those who try to catch me while I am being held captive.

This particular morning was different. I had settled into my routine. Tired from a week of very little sleep, but content to have two hours of escape.

15 minutes in, I noticed that only one of the 4 compression zones was working. I kept changing positions, thinking I was laying on one of the 4 hoses. I shook my legs, hoping maybe kicking would jump start the machine. I am so glad no one could witness what a comical sight it must have been to see a robot dancing on a couch.

I looked at the machine’s monitor twice, and everything was cycling as it should, but I just wasn’t getting my prescribed treatment. I started to panic, wondering how I was going to replace a $5000 medical device. I then remembered I had a 10 year warranty on the thing, but nevertheless, I starting to fret over the process and expense it would take to pack about 10 lbs of equipment and mail back to the non-local service center.

However, as I reached over to the machine that I was expressing anger toward, I felt a puff of air and realized that in my haste and distraction, I had only plugged in one of the four hoses. My machine wasn’t broken, I just hadn’t connected to it.

Immediately, in my spirit, I heard “yeah, kinda like us.”

A painful wave came over me, realizing that my failure to connect had spread to my relationship with my all-encompassing healing Savior.

In my rush and haste to perform “the have to” things in life, my personal time with Him was suffering greatly. He promised to be with me always, but I hadn’t always been with Him. Prayer and praise had been replaced with to-do lists.

Far worse, I had been complaining and pondering over promises and prophetic words that didn’t seem like they were working in my favor. Tired, spent, and joy decreasing. Blaming everything on the “machine” life can be, instead of connecting to the “Power”

As I replugged in the natural, I could also feel the Holy Spirit nudging me get my 4 zones in order : alone time with Him in true worship, more time in the Word learning about Him, re-establishing Him as priority, and trusting in His promise warranties.

I stopped a moment to apologize to Flexitouch Plus for failing to connect to it and narcissisticly making “it” the problem. Once I reconnected, it fulfilled all I needed to get back on track, and I always look forward to the release of pressure at the end of every session.

And yes, of course, I apologized to Jesus, and that release after reconnecting and being forgiven is amazing .


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Nope, You Ain’t Got This

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I can’t remember who’s social media page I saw it on, so I can’t give proper credit, but this paraphrased sentence shook me to my core.

“Never Tell A Person, ‘you got this’ when they ask for help because obviously they don’t or they wouldn’t be talking to you.“

I know it is something I have said thinking I was be encouraging, but could my pat on the back have seemed dismissive? Did I trivialize a pain that was greater for you than I feel in myself or for myself? Could you have needed a soft place to land and I simply elevated you to somewhere higher to fall from?

I think back to when I was at the height of my cancer battle. Folks would say “oh you got this” or “you are so strong.” In actuality, I was screaming on the inside, needing a shoulder to cry on and desperate for an old school laying on of oil anointed hands. When all my treatments were over, I politely smiled when asked if I was good now. I really should have loudly voiced, “oh heck no, I’m fighting extreme depression, I feel like I’m going crazy, please don’t abandon me.”

Ooooooo forgive me, I did mean well and I oft see past today and into your future. I still envision great things on the horizon. But at the time you need a Word, I will now tell you God got you and let’s see how we can walk through this.

There may be nothing I can do in the natural but be a voice in the darkness or a bit of sunshine clearing shadowing places. Truly, that may be all you need. Or I can point you to some resources beyond me. In wisdom, we will talk to the Father first about what is best for you.

Now bear with me, it may take me awhile to shake that cheerful cliché. But for today, I pray that whatever is disturbing your mind, your heart or your body be washed in the Presence of the Almighty. That you be hugged by the best comforting of the Holy Spirit. That the provision, healing, and freedom purchased by Christ at Calvary be revealed and afforded to you. That every wound be mended and every resource for a Balm in Gilead soothe every where you hurt.

I pray that today you see that God got this and God got you. And that you are never far from one willing to walk it through with you.

Love ya – Chelle

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Happy Birthday To Us

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In less than 24 hours, he will be officially an adult, and I will be able to stop using my husband’s AARP card and have my own.

I helped deliver this marvel and he has stolen every birthday since. He was born a little blue, and the doctor said “here grandma, you wake him up.” So, I roughed him up with love and anointing oil on my hands….praying all the while and thanking God for that first cry. Ironically, he is the only one of my grands who actually calls me grandma. I guess he heard with the doctor said.

This morning, I take another first cry for a sweet boy who now becomes a man.


Happy tears because he is now smarter than I could have ever dreamed, more loving than I could have imagined, and his future is so bright that the sun has competition.

As joyful as this triumph is, a few nervous tears as he goes to college, achieves his dream career, meets his future mate, and perhaps a brood of 6.5 feet tall children like himself. Selfish, I know, but I will always want him to let me hold him in my heart the way I did in the pic below.

Thank you, Josiah Gillison and Teonna Tull-Roberts, for the best birthday present ever.

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I said I wasnt..but

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I believe almost every member of my family has the giving bug that was gleefully transmitted by my grandma, Alice Gillison. Though only Goochland Christmas for one year in the early 80s, she continued to do the organizing and giving right up until 19 days before she died. She was better than Oprah with “every child gets a gift” campaign.

No matter how poor we were (and we were close to dirt), she believed that giving was living.

I first picked it up on a small scale in memory of her . Then again, because I wanted to adopt a little boy for Christmas after my beloved grandson, Emmanuel slipped away to heaven. My husband and I blessed a little boy with “Manny’s” share last week.

The collections get larger every year. For the past 5 years, I have said each year that I wasn’t going to do anymore. Each year, I Iie to myself.This year, I tackled doing this for two organizations. I have decided that I am nuts, but I love it. Lol.

Thanks for the “Gift” Grandma.

No Fruit Cake, Please

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Reflecting on yesterday’s Christmas blessings.

My husband’s latest scans came back clean. Whew just in time to put a little Christmas cheer back.

My “partner in crime” cousin’s suspected breast cancer turned out to be nothing. I think she is happy I bug folks about smash-a-grams.

The Lord put me in the path of a young man who needed a Christian stranger to look past color, gender and class to “read his mail”. He thought he had hit a psychic reading which gave an inroad to talk about WHO a word of knowledge really comes from.

Then an unexpected last minute dessert order that I really didn’t know how to charge for, helped pay for 6 new sets of thermals for donation to Blessing Warriors RVA Inc. .

All I need now is for no one to offer me fruit cake and this will be the best Christmas ever.

Merry Christmas Everyone

With Love and Penmanship – Michelle

Find Me In The Clutter

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All this week I found it tough to find my quiet time and focus. 

Being a wife, mom of 5, grandma of 10. a full time employee of a job that runs more like 12 hour a day and resource minister, what is alone time again? I had pushed my time with God to quick moments…out of focus and not very devoted. 

 Guilt tried to creep in several times as I had been carving some time this week to do some decluttering and downsizing as I am making decisions whether to renovate my cute little house built in 1955 or move on to something bigger. Like I found time for junk but not Him.

Amongst the piles of what to trash, what to give away, and what to keep for repurposing, I found treasures and tears. Joys and lows. Memories kept and some that needed to be let go.  I laughed as much as I cried. I held on to as much as I said “why do I still have this?”

This morning, I go to get up determined that God and I would have coffee no matter what!  Yet before I could fully get out of bed, my foot would rest on one of the many piles of sorted clothes. My mind immediately thought to tidy up a little first. 

“Find Me In The Clutter”

What?

“Find Me In The Clutter”

Clear as day. In my spirit was an utterance to see God’s Glory in all my mess. As I refocused, I see Him.

He is there with me amongst the colorful stick figure drawings and piles of mother’s day cards from the joy of being a mom and Nama.  

He is there with me in  the butterflies I collect in memory of the beloved twin daughters and a grandson lost at birth.

He is there with me in the college diploma I received though I was told as a teenage mother I wouldn’t graduate high school. He is there with me in all 5 of their diplomas as well.

He is there with me in the mesh and metal cage bra I wore during 25 radiation treatments after 3 months of chemo and a lumpectomy.

He is there with me in angel figurine of a woman whom I never met who died herself but left the encouragement to celebrate my 3rd year as a survivor.

He is there with me in every photo of every loved one, every saved wedding announcement, every saved funeral program. In old records, old books, tickets stubs, vacation shirts and on and on.

I am writing to you now atop a pile of clutter in a hot mess of joyful tears mixed with “God, I’m sorry.” 

 I can’t quite find the words to express this feeling of knowing that He is always with me and speaking,  even when I am a mess in a mess. What I had classified as a distraction turned into revelation and gratitude. A different kind of devotion….  initiated by Him.

I still have work to do…… both on working on “our time” and my cluttered environment.  But He urged me to be mindful to let go of the guilt and allow this to be a “rested work”.  A work that has purpose and meaning that will feel less like work as we clean it together.

WHEW GLORY!

So if any of you earth dwellers go looking for me today, listen out for the Hallelujahs in the hallway under the piles of kids clothes!!!!

  • Michelle